'Tis a Gift to be Simple - Peanut Butter

The more I get into this enterprise of greener living, the more I realize my parents knew everything all along.

When I was a kid, we used to keep our peanut butter in the fridge. Until I was ten, I thought everybody kept peanut butter in the fridge. I would go over to other people's houses, and while we were making peanut butter sandwiches (as kids inevitably do), I would go to the fridge and say "Where's the peanut butter?" And the other kid would get it out of the cupboard and look at me like I was crazy.

"Why would you put peanut butter in the fridge?" my little friend would say.

Well, let me answer that for you.

You put peanut butter in the fridge when it has an ingredient list of 2 things: peanut butter and salt (or 1 thing - you don't even need the salt). You have to put it in the fridge, because peanut butter, when made of only two ingredients, naturally separates into oils and solids. You stir it up, and then you put it in the fridge to keep it stable.

The peanut butter that you can keep in the cupboard, which is so delightfully spreadable, is stabilized with chemicals and sweetened with sugar or corn-based sweet stuff. Here's the ingredient list from a leading national brand: MADE FROM ROATED PEANUTS AND SUGAR, CONTAINS 2 PERCENT OR LESS OF: MOLASSES, FULLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS (RAPESEED AND SOYBEAN), MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES AND SALT.

And if you want reduced fat: PEANUTS, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, SUGAR AND SOY PROTEIN, CONTAINS 2 PERCENT OR LESS OF: FULLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS (RAPESEED AND SOYBEAN), SALT, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, MOLASSES, NIACINAMIDE, FOLIC ACID, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE, MAGNESIUM OXIDE, ZINC OXIDE, FERRIC ORTHOPHOSPHATE, AND COPPER SULFATE

Huh?

All of that, so that we can spread our peanut butter without stirring it first?

Here's the big secret: that natural, simpler peanut butter, the kind that you have to stir? It tastes better. It's completely different than the imitation product we usually eat. In fact, if you've been eating regular peanut butter, you probably have no idea what peanut butter actually tastes like, smells like, or what sort of consistency it is. It makes me feel a little frightened that big industry can totally warp our sense of what a particular food is, until we wouldn't recognize the real thing if we put it on our toast and took a bite out of it.

Try it. You'll like it. I did when I was a kid.

Note: And yes, I know I've been incommunicado for about a week, and all 15 of you who actually care might have been a bit irked. Well, I'm back and I've got a bunch of posts I'm working on for this week.